A Phoenix Lament
by x-akurei
Summary: Voldemort was defeated, the war was won. We are told of how Harry feels, but what about the others? Provides an insight into the minds of some of the more obscure or deceased characters after the war - including Bellatrix Lestrange, Susan Bones, Lavender Brown, Rodolphus Lestrange and Percy Weasley.
1. Bellatrix Lestrange

I always wondered what happened to some of the less major characters in the series after the war...

**********Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, nor am I making a profit from this.

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_Bellatrix Lestrange_

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When you die, they say you see your whole life flash before your eyes. They say you see a light and then the ground seems to dissolve into nothingness below you, and you feel overcome with a strange but pleasant warmth. Bellatrix knows that she is too hard-set to feel warmth.

When she was young, they told her that if she was a very good little girl, her spirit would go up to Heaven and live in eternal happiness, surrounded by all the things that she could ever want. Bellatrix had pictured candy canes and stuffed toy rabbits floating upon the damask clouds.

But Bellatrix does not expect any of that now.

Her last laugh is her last pleasure, the last sound ever to reach her ears and to ever escape her lips. There is no blinding white light when she is struck, no weightless feeling, no rejoice as her soul is freed and lifted up past the pearly gates. It is all over very, very suddenly. Bellatrix only sees the green blur of the Killing Curse, and then a blackness that stretches out endlessly in front of her.

Her eyes do not close once. Her first breath, as she tries to pull herself onto her knees, is painful, like a dagger to the chest, and she wheezes, choking, and collapses again, hands clutching at the blackness around her. Her throat constricts only more as she gasps for air. But gasping for air is like trying to breath underwater - futile, nothing short of impossible. Trembling, still choking, she gives up trying to survive, though she knows quite well that she is already dead. With her cheek pressed against the blackness below, she lets the pain take over for a little longer, shuddering until it subsides, and all that is left is a dull throbbing.

Her bones ache now; they feel like lead, as if she has carried a great weight for many miles. Even small movements are a struggle, an effort, and Bellatrix is barely aware of time that passes - if any. She has no voice, though she tries to speak. Her lips form only words that fall deaf upon her ears.

She has failed, killed by a Blood Traitor. Her parents would have been so ashamed.

Without strength to strand, Bellatrix grasps again at the blackness before her, and rakes herself forward with her nails until they bleed and her fingers tremble. A sob escapes her, quite as soundless as her words, the movements sending jolts of agony through her lethargic muscles.

How long is an eternity? Bellatrix wonders.

She thinks about her Lord, then. Has he noticed her lifeless body yet, no doubt sprawled across the floor of the entrance hall, possibly trampled on by more fighters? The memory of him stirs another great pain in her chest, and she scrunches her eyes up against it. He would scoff, if only he saw her now.

_"Love, Bellatrix, is for the weak."_

_I_f that is the case, then she has never been strong enough for her Lord. Bellatrix knows this - she feels it, with every translucent fibre of her non-existence as she turns heavily onto her side and pulls her knees up to her stomach. She swallows. Love, the downfall of every mortal being, including herself.

She will be left like this forever now, she is certain.

Bellatrix is _unsure_, however, of how many times an Unforgivable Curse had to form on her lips in order to reduce her to an eternity of grief and pain like this, nor how many times she had to laugh at another's misfortune. They said Hell was a place of fire and lava, where the Devil lurked and the sound of screams and thrashing whips filled the air, but here, in the deadly silence and dark, with only her thoughts to keep her company, Bellatrix would much rather take the Devil.

She had danced with him all her life after all; only now had they finally parted.

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**- x-akurei**

I'll try to update this once a month, or maybe twice at a push! So check back :)


	2. Susan Bones

**************Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, nor am I making a profit from this.

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_Susan Bones_

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It is only when Susan hears the triumphant screams from the hallway that she knows they have won. She does not stir from her corner in the Great Hall; she daren't, for all around her lie the bodies of the dead, scratched, scarred, bloodied. Death has always scared Susan.

Trembling by herself, wedged between a fallen column and the cold stone wall, her wand limp in her hand, she looks out upon the scene. The fallen lie in heaps in the middle of the hall, carried in earlier by those who were still able to stand. Susan dreads to think of how many more have been injured since midnight. She tries to pick out faces - Lupin, she recognises, the old Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, lying so peacefully now just several feet away that it is almost as if he is sleeping. His wife's body rests beside him, her once purple hair now turning grey. It disturbs Susan, for it is like she is decaying before her eyes, and she tears her gaze away.

She wishes her parents were there, she wishes she knew where Hannah was. At last come the yells of anxious friends and family, amongst all the jubilation of Voldemort's defeat, calling for their loved ones.

"Anna, where's Anna?"

"Has anyone seen my boy?"

Susan raises her head again; she knows she must move, must be seen to be alive. She wonders how many would mourn her, if they thought she were dead… The thought sends a shudder through her bruised body, and so with a sniff, mustering up all of her courage again, she grasps the wall and drags herself to her feet. Deliberately not looking in the direction of Lupin and his wife, she slowly stumbles out from her hiding place.

Flocks of people are now crowding back into the Great Hall, thankfully only few newly injured. Susan spots the Weasley's, their tear-streaked faces alight despite all, as they cheer The Boy Who Lived, walking amongst them. She can see Ernie Macmillan by the doors, too, holding the arms of a limp body and waving for someone to help shift the poor unfortunate inside. Hagrid's giant friend peers in through one of the smashed windows, laughing as people throw food into his open mouth - Grawp, Susan thinks she heard him called. McGonagall bustles past as well, her eye black and mouth split at the side, but otherwise looking overjoyed, and Flitwick seems almost beside himself as he limps around the Hall, shaking hands with both students and parents, centaurs and other teachers alike. There are just as many tears on every face as there are cheers. Still, Susan cannot bring herself to fully rejoice. She sees only the people she knows by name and house, not by heart, not the people who she really craves the company of. She would love to go home now, she cannot bear to be here, not knowing.

"Susan!"

_Oh, _but she knows _that _voice…

"Susan!"

She turns as she shrill voice echoes even closer and then, before her eyes focus fully on the face rushing towards her, she is suffocated by arms flung around her shoulders, hugging her for all she is worth. They are arms with deep gashes running up and down them, arms with singed sleeves, and when they pull back, the face of the owner is badly burnt down the left side, too. But Hannah Abbott has never looked better, for she is alive.

"I thought I would never see you again!" she almost cries, screwing up her eyes. "I thought -" Susan understands. As one of the few remaining Bones', she would have been expected to go the same way as her poor Aunt Amelia, just a year before…

"Come on," she whispers, taking Hannah's hand and together they progress through the Hall.

It is bizarre, Susan thinks, to see the remaining students of Hogwarts not sitting at their house tables, but intermingling. The house banners themselves are torn, hanging from the walls in tattered strips. The Slytherin students were escorted away from the castle, of course, but Susan wonders… Did _any _of them sneak back to help? Cowards. She may have hidden half way through the battle, but at least she didn't flee from it.

The pair reach the doorway, staring out over the Entrance Hall. The last of the Death Eaters' bodies are being moved now, set away from those of the victorious, a retribution towards them. The walls of the castle are crumbling, collapsing in from the huge dents in the wall where they were hit with spells. Some are smoking, the effect of no doubt some dastardly curse, that would perhaps mean they could never be fixed. Parts of the rubble are flecked with blood, and there are pools of it on the floor, trickling into the cracks and drying dark and crusted. The sight is even more devasting in the light of the early morning sun. At least in the darkness, Susan couldn't see the extent of the damage. Then a taller male, one she has never seen before, slips past her and Hannah in the doorway.

"_Victoire_!" he shouts, in a triumphant manner. He grins widely, and Hannah returns a small smile. His words do nothing to console the other Hufflepuff, however.

"I want to go home, Hannah." Susan says quietly, biting her lip so as not to cry. She cannot stand it, to see the place where up until recently she had spent so many happy days, falling apart before her eyes, adorned with the blood of the defeated.

Hannah squeezes her hand, nodding reassuringly. "Yes, it's over now, Susan. We've won the war."

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**- x-akurei**


	3. Lavender Brown

Worst fanfic author ever? Worst fanfic author ever. GUYS I'M SO SORRY. I've been away from Harry for over a year, but I'm back now. Hopefully I'll get these finished some time soon.

******Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, nor am I making a profit from this.

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_Lavender Brown_

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Lavender hears voices calling to her as if in a dream. She knows them, vaguely, and yet she wonders where from. Though she wants to very much, she cannot muster the strength to come around. Not yet.

"It'll be okay, Lav,"

The voice is beside her, soft and familiar.

"You can hardly see the scars now…"

Scars, of what? Lavender wants to understand properly but in her state, of broken bones and mangled flesh, her brain is blacked out to the reality of what has happened. Of how she was attacked by a Death Eater, knocking her backwards over the balcony and plummeting to the broken floor below, only to be advanced upon by no other than Fenrir Greyback, his mouth already dripping with blood, sweat rolling down his neck.

Lavender feels as if she is only a brain, maybe even just a thought, floating around in a netherworld without any body nor real recollections. She is vaguely, but only very vaguely, still aware of her body. Her physical being seems distant to her; numb; and no matter what she does, Lavender cannot quite manage to pull herself back into it.

Where is she? And what happened? They are the questions her brain still struggles over, unable to answer for itself.

The voice beside her is feminine, Lavender knows this much.

Parvati Patel watches her all throughout the night from beside her bed in St Mungo's, and worries, so much so that she bites down her nails to painful stubs, that her dearest friend might never know.

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- **x-akurei**


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